Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said this week that water security is Egypt’s first and most important existential priority, adding that the country will not allow its historical Nile water rights to be encroached upon.
“We should trust the state and its institutions. They will not under any circumstances allow any infringement on the existential issue of Egypt’s historical rights to water and the water of the Nile, which is clearly not sufficient for our water needs,” he said.
Abdelatty said that Egypt’s annual water needs exceed 90 billion cubic metres (bcm), while its share of the Nile water is just 55.5 bcm. The water availability per person is thus under 500 cubic metres a year, far below the UN’s water poverty limit of 1,000.
Abdelatty’s statements came in an interview with presenter Lamis Al-Hadidi on the Kalema Akhira TV shown on Sunday evening.
According to Ambassador Ali Al-Hefni, Deputy to Egypt's Foreign Minister, Abdelatty’s comments reflect Egypt’s firm historical stand. “It is an issue related to Egypt’s national security and water security that should not be compromised,” he said.
Egypt has been trying to resolve the issue of Ethiopia’s building the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Upper Nile by diplomacy for over 12 years on the bilateral as well as trilateral levels, he said, since it could threaten Egypt’s water security.
But Ethiopia has declined to deal with the issue in a serious and responsible way, ignoring the fact that the River Nile is an international river.
Egypt declared, after more than 12 years of talks, that the negotiations on the GERD had reached deadlock, Abdelatty said, adding that Addis Ababa has been using the process to impose a fait accompli.
Ethiopia has unilaterally completed the filling of the dam’s reservoir during the last five years and begun operating two turbines without reaching an agreement on the filling or the operations with the downstream countries of Egypt and Sudan.
The concrete work at the dam is now 99 per cent complete. The water level in the reservoir was 60 bcm after the fifth filling in September 2024 but was estimated to have dropped to 54 bcm in mid-June this year. The turbines are still in the experimental stage, working for a few days then stopping for months.
However, with the flood season likely to start by mid-July, the water in the reservoir will exceed its maximum level of 638 m above sea level with a total storage of 60 bcm. This will force Ethiopia to open the gates of the dam and allow any excess water to pass, without generating electricity, to reach Sudan and Egypt.
The uncertainty in the amount of water set to reach the downstream countries is posing a challenge, especially in Sudan, which needs to coordinate with Addis Ababa on the amount of water stored or released from its dams. Failure to coordinate can lead to severe damage to Sudan’s dams.
Abdelatty reaffirmed in the interview on Sunday that Egypt reserves the right to act in a way that meets its interests. “Egypt maintains the right to self-defence and protecting its water interests if it faces threats. This is a clear matter that we have repeatedly declared,” he said.
He also pointed in the interview to Red Sea security as the sole responsibility of the Red Sea coastal states. “We will not accept under any circumstance any permanent presence of non-coastal states in the Red Sea region,” he said.
He called for the quick activation of the Council of Arab and African Coastal States of the Red Sea, which was established in 2020 but still needs to be operationalised.
The issue of the security of the Red Sea entered the limelight when Ethiopia signed a deal with Somaliland in January 2024 granting it access to the Red Sea in exchange for recognising the breakaway region.
Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991. However, it has not been recognised since, and Mogadishu still regards it as part of Somali territory.
The issue seemed to have been partially resolved last December when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan mediated between the two parties and announced a Somali-Ethiopian agreement to end their dispute.
But the issue of the security of the Red Sea is still of high concern to Egypt and other coastal states.
Regular meetings are held between the Egyptian, Eritrean, and Somali foreign ministers on the issue. Abdelatty met with his Eritrean counterpart Osman Saleh in March to discuss ways to promote regional stability through tripartite coordination with Somalia.
The two diplomats also underlined their rejection of any involvement of non-coastal states in the protection and governance of the Red Sea.
In January, Abdelatty stated in a meeting with the foreign ministers of Eritrea and Somalia that Egypt rejected any non-littoral military presence and supported Somali sovereignty.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 3 July, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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